The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are sons of God, and if children, then heirs – heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.”
We have an eternal location and position in God’s family because we are Spiritually re-born into God’s Kingdom. Even though being small children in God’s Kingdom, as we saw in our last GraceNotes, we are to grow in grace and knowledge of Jesus Himself through the guidance of the Holy Spirit dwelling within us. We are a container where the Holy Spirit of God is dwelling. We are to be holy because He is holy!
“All who are led by God are sons of God.” “We have received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry Abba! (daddy) Father.” This leading of the Spirit via our Spiritual awareness affirms our Father’s daily presence as we continue in a worldly culture of darkness to be “overcomers” glorifying our holy Lord Jesus while dwelling in our jars of clay!
We now proceed a little deeper into this subject of the Holy Spirit’s ministry within our new-born reality.
We have not received the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but rather, through His promises we now become partakers of His divine nature. How many of us probe this blessed reality? “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us to His own glory and excellence.” -2Peter 1:3. While experiencing the hardship of worldliness on the outside, within, we grow our Spiritual maturity through the knowledge of Him who has called us to His own glory and excellence!
This is so amazing! Probably, to most of us, this is more like a dream than reality, even while knowing it is true! The fact is, our Creator God of this observable universe has reached down into our level of community and provided access, for His created peoples, into God’s own “throne of grace!”
We must keep in mind that God our Father is operating in our behalf to train and nurture our relation with Himself through Jesus the Son and the Holy Spirit who is given to us as our mentor-counselor. Our relationship is dependent upon our position and our attitude of faith. His divine power has granted to us all things pertaining to life and godliness … through the knowledge of Him!
Through the knowledge of Him is the gateway through which our own redeemed spirit must travel. Praise the Lord, the Holy Spirit of God is mentoring and walking us personally into God’s living Kingdom.
Being born-again is one thing, growing in His grace is another! Being partakers of His divine nature opens our heart’s door to Jesus’ participation through our Holy Spirit’s internal ministry within our own soul. His divine nature in us is our living root sourcing His new life, but this is a love relationship requiring our commitment. We already have the nurturing of Jesus Himself, the true manna from heaven, through His Holy Spirit. God provides the means for His children to learn and walk in His presence but we, His children, must respond and be obedient!
We are dependent; we must learn to walk by faith!
Life in Jesus requires our internal participation in the Holy Spirit’s ministry! God, our Father, is on call, providing access to Himself through the on-going access of the Holy Spirit dwelling in us.
The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit. The ministry of the Holy Spirit in His children is a reality rarely shared from the pulpit and too often just read as scripture without much deliberation. For example, Jesus tells His disciple children in Luke 11:13, “ …how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask!”
It is not just having the Holy Spirit, as blessed as that is, it is growing into maturity! We should be seeking the fullness of God. The active role of the Holy Spirit requires our participation on our inside!
This essential aspect of our participation is due diligence and a prayer life. We are so distracted by daily concerns and worldly activities that we too easily neglect our agape love relationship, yes, you and me!
God’s throne of grace is open to His redeemed even while we are still in our jars of clay, because we are now His family, having entered into His Kingdom through the blood of Jesus, our mediator. How blessed it is to have the agape love of God continuously knocking on our heart’s door, seeking our personal human fellowship!
Having the Holy Spirit’s presence through redemption and justification, is merely a starting point into God’s grace. Paul compares the Old Testament law to our current grace provision as “so much more” in Romans 5. It is up to us, thru our desire and His mercy to “overcome” our natural distractions, putting to death the world, the flesh and the devil.
The Holy Spirit is within us forever; it is part of God’s plan because Jesus took our place on His cross, shedding His redemptive blood, defeating death itself, so that we may walk forever in Him. There is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus!
Grace is God’s continuous work within us revealing the corruptness of humanity while at the same time exposing our redeemed Spirituality within the righteousness of His agape love. Grace has to do with both discipline as well as glory; His glory is changing us to be like Himself but requires our “want to,” our desire, to be “overcomers.” That I might know Him and the power of His resurrection.
This, of course, is not possible without His resurrection power working in us while we are walking in His grace. We have the divine power to put self to death; this is part of our physical sufferings by identifing our union in Jesus Christ and putting to death the self still operating in our choices.
Our time on earth, in these jars of clay, is time allotted to us to grow our personal connection, our intimate relationship. God’s grace provides this to us on a personal basis. God the Father through Jesus, the Son of man and the Son of God through the mentoring provision granted us through the Holy Spirit is loving us, even in our jars of clay!
Our suffering leads us into His glory through His suffering for us! Provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. Yes, while on earth, we are in a Spiritual boot camp, salted with fire, putting off the old man while at the same time putting on the new man.
It is God who has “sealed” us and given us the Holy Spirit as our guarantee into God’s Kingdom. We are being kept by the resurrection power of Jesus Himself. But our due diligence is to know Him as sons and daughters. We are to share His glory. It is the Holy Spirit who is the “earnest,” our guarantee of our position in Christ Jesus and our future maturation into His glory. We are Spiritual heirs of Jesus to manifest His glory within our own selves, as well as, to others, even in these jars of clay which we are currently assigned.
God wants each of us to test him! He wants us to be “overcomers;” He wants us to love Him as He continually proves His loving intimacy to us. His creative workmanship is building Spiritual maturity in us by us walking in Him! Do we understand this kind of grace? Are we consuming His grace? Our suffering enables our growing, enables our spirit’s hearing His Spirit’s small voice!
Jesus has been given to us as the “manna” from heaven. To the children of Israel in the wilderness, manna was physical food sustaining them till they arrived in the promised land. Today, Jesus is our Spiritual manna sustaining us until our own day of reward. We are to eat His flesh and drink His blood continually, leading us to yield His fruit in this flesh, in these physical bodies. Yes, this is our Spiritual boot camp!
Jesus told His disciples that he would soon depart but He would send a “helper,” who is the Holy Spirit Himself, who reveals all things about Jesus. This is what this verse (Rom. 8:16) is all about, The Holy Spirit Himself revealing to those redeemed, to those who are reconciled back to God, to those regenerated with divine Spiritual capacity; these are those who fellowship with Jesus and He with them. This is our milieu of fellowship while remaining within our jar of clay, making possible our suffering with the resurrection power to live life on the level of Jesus Himself. “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”
There is complacency in the church, the Body of Christ. Jesus Himself said to the church at Laodicea that they were lukewarm, neither cold nor hot and because of that He would spit them out of His mouth. It is to this lukewarm church Jesus spoke this agape love invitation: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him and eat with him, and he with me.”
This is Jesus speaking to born-again believers, people who are already reconciled to God but have allowed themselves to become absorb with worldly distractions, feeding not on the heavenly manna of Jesus’ own words but rather with an appetite of worldliness in the darkness of flesh.
John tells us the scripture is the (logos) word of God. Logos is the Greek “word,” which, in the days before Jesus, was a philosophic term used to describe the unknown powers of our observable and physical world creation. “Logos” was the unknown living source for the origin of observable matter and creation itself.
Jesus came into this same created world saying “I am” the source of both creation and life. The Bible is the logos of God and if we hide the logos Word of God in our heart, we will not sin against God. It is the Holy Spirit using Jesus’ “logos” word to reveal and open our Spiritual understanding to the things of Jesus while in this earthly jar of clay. This is what Jesus promised to the disciples, and us, through our Holy Spirit as we hide the logos word of God in our heart. Listen to John’s testimony:
“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and touched with our hands, concerning the logos (word) of life – and the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us – that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.” -1John 1:1-3.
The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit. He is now bearing witness to our personal human spirit, working within our fleshly clay jar, awaiting our responses. Are we seeking to grow this personal relationship deeply within our own self? Are we hungering and thirsting after His righteousness? His fulness in us is available, if this our desire.
Many born again believers are satisfied knowing their salvation is secured in Jesus and resort to the sermon on the mount for their code of behavior. The principle of faith for sanctification salvation is still in play after regeneration.
The ministry of the Holy Spirit equips us for growing and becoming Spiritually mature. Being “saved,” being redeemed by Jesus is not our final destination. Being saved is just the beginning of becoming righteousness in Him! Like new born babes, we must learn to drink milk and crawl before walking. Being born again requires our walking by faith, not by sight. Jesus is now our Life for the law of the Spirit of life has set us free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. We need to put off the things of the physical world and put on the robe of righteousness, walking in the light of Jesus and not worldly-wise foolishness. His ways are not our ways; His thoughts are not our thoughts! We must learn to choose His ways!
God loves us deeply with His agape love! He has inserted more love upon and in us than we actually are aware. Have we become so self-conscientious that we know longer hear with our Spiritual ears. How many times have you read in scripture: “he that hath ears, let him hear”? We are talking about Spiritual ears to hear what our Holy Spirit is saying to us and doing within us! How many of us actually consume His grace and hear Spiritually? How many of us actually understand what this means? Do we even understand the meaning of grace? It is much more than “unmerited favor from God to man!”
When we are ready to receive the fulness of His grace, to actually consume His grace, then our indwelling Holy Spirit will manifest His agape love exposing His glory in us and we will produce His fruit to others!! But first, we must nurture His Spiritual desire within ourselves, within this jar of clay in which we are now living!
Too often we think of the Spirit of God as an invisible phantom, a symbol of God who is actually out of our reach; He, the Holy Spirit, is a real Person, just as are God the Father and Jesus the Son.
Many translations take this verse (8:16) and translate the Spirit as “itself.” This is a grammatically correct translation because the Greek noun for Spirit is neuter and therefore the neuter pronoun “itself” is being used. But comparing scripture to scripture, we know God is three vital living persons and therefore it is legitimate and proper to translate the Greek pronoun “Himself” rather than “itself.”
These kind of nuances have the effect of confusing our human conception of what is really going on. The Holy Spirit of God is a person and is the Person who is ministering unto and into us personally concerning the Truth in Jesus!
We find in John 14:25cf, John quoting Jesus saying: “These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, “he” will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.”
It is the Holy Spirit bearing witness to our spirit that enables us to cry “Abba! Father (“whereby we cry “Abba! Father”). This is the Spirit of adoption Himself bearing witness with our spirit so that we respond from within our own heart, Abba! Father! God has become our Father, literally, and Jesus the Son, is our Lord, and the Holy Spirit is our mentor-counselor, literally!
Another illustration is when Jesus speaks out to a crowd in Jerusalem: “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart (belly) will flow rivers of living water.’ Now this He said about the Spirit, those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.” But now the Spirit is within us and we are the “aroma” of Christ to God for those being saved and those being lost.
How do we produce the condition within our own selves to participate Spiritually at this level? The Holy Spirit is our teacher but we must personally commit with desire and time!
We need to take the time to enter into our own closet; we need to take the time to enter into God’s Holy Word and carefully consider His truth on a personal level. Our personal experience today, a member of Christ Jesus’s Body, is at a point of time within God’s plan through the ages. God has given us His plan within the context of Genesis thru Revelation.
As we continue our study, moving into Romans 8:18 in our next GraceNotes, we shall consider the larger context of man’s Spiritual relationship from the Garden of Eden in human history as compared to the heavenly Jerusalem where we find the Tree of Life which the Holy Spirit of God is preparing us to receive, if we are in Christ Jesus.
As we continue searching into Romans 8, we want to keep in view the larger context in which our scripture is written. Some say it is a statement of assurance for our salvation. While that is obviously true, there are other threads running through this chapter as well. The life of the Spirit of God in the believer is certainly observable here. It is also a statement about our sanctification and our personal relationship as sons and daughters as children of God.
But perhaps a most important theme is defining our new identity as a Spiritual person in 2023 who has been created new In Jesus as a member of the Bride of Jesus in today’s moment of God’s plan through the ages. We have seen mankind as a sinner who is utterly devoid of worth compared to our righteousness in Jesus, our Holy Creator who made us for His own joy and fellowship! We have seen the emphasis move from Israel to the church age. We are seeing right now, a shift to global political control and personal identification through AI (Artificial Intelligence). We are in the last days but we are Spiritual sons and daughters in Christ Jesus.
Believers in Christ Jesus will be judged! Our judgment seat is looming.
For I consider the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed into us. -Romans 8:18.